Report: Glenn Beck tried to buy Current TV, Al Gore went with Al-Jazeera

Glenn Beck waves as he arrives to speak at his 'Restoring Honor' rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010.
(AP)

Jan. 13, 2012: Former U.S. Vice President and Current TV Chairman and co-founder Al Gore speaks during the panel for Current TV's "Politically Direct" at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, California.
(REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni)

Al-Jazeera wasn't the only media company with its sights set on former Vice President Al Gore's little-watched Current TV.

Glenn Beck's Blaze Media approached the struggling cable news network last year, the Wall Street Journal reports, but was rebuffed because "the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view."

Instead, Gore went with the Emir of Qatar-funded Arab news channel Al-Jazeera.

Al-Jazeera has been criticized for having a pro-Islamist bent, and accused of working with members of Al Qaeda. One of its journalists was arrested in Israel in 2011 on suspicion of being an agent of the Palestinian group Hamas. Dave Marash, a former "Nightline" reporter who worked for Al-Jazeera in Washington, said he left the network in 2008 in part because he sensed an anti-American bias there.

The network is subsidized by the ruling family of oil rich Qatar, which some critics have said smacks of hypocrisy, given Gore's beliefs that global warming is due in large part to mankind's reliance on fossil fuels.

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Gore won the Oscar in 2006 for his documentary film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Gore netted $100 million with his 20 percent stake in Current TV when it was sold for a reported $500 million on Wednesday.

Al-Jazeera plans to euthanize the seven-year-old network and turn it into Al-Jazeera America by adding five to 10 new U.S. bureaus beyond the five it has now. More than half of its content will be U.S. news, and the network will have its headquarters in New York, according to a rep.